NEW YORK: US magazines are still struggling in a flat market, according to the latest data from Publishers Information Bureau which show ad pages rose just 0.7% in the first three quarters of the year compared with the same period last year.

The PIB claims revenues grew 4.3%, but many of the calculations are based on official ad rates which do not take into account publishers' discounts.

Celebrity weeklies have performed well, including Bauer Publishing's In Touch Weekly, up 38.6% to 647 pages, and Life & Style Weekly, up 19.2% to 338 pages.

Among advertisers in the first three quarters, direct-to-consumer pharma companies expanded their buys most, running 13,507 pages to register an increase of 12.2% [WARC News: 09-Oct-06].

The struggling auto industry cut page buys through to the end of September by 12.7%.

The apparel-and-accessories category racked up the most pages in absolute terms, with a total of 17,173 for a gain of 1.4%.

Data sourced from AdAge.com; additional content by WARC staff